Search form

News tagged with "Biofuels, Fuels and Chemistry"

At the close of this week's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade summit in Beijing, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions and detailed an agreement that includes a renewed five-year commitment to supporting clean vehicle research efforts via the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center.

Officials from the U.S. Department of Energy, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, faculty and students from the University of Michigan- led Clean Energy Research Center- Clean Vehicle Consortium (CERC-CVC) and industry partners met in Ann Arbor on August 11th and 12th to review progress on the initiative's joint clean vehicle energy research projects.

No, the proposed Keystone XL pipeline will NOT carry black tar heroin. But whether you think that diluted bitumen from the Canadian oil sands is better or worse than heroin, there may be a lesson from the “war on drugs.” No, I haven’t been smoking anything, although this morning my hybrid did inhale gasoline and exhale CO2, some of whose carbon probably came from Alberta.

The U.S. Department of Energy today announced that Margaret Wooldridge, a University of Michigan Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is one of six 2013 recipients of the prestigious E.O. Lawrence Award, the agency’s highest award for mid-career scientists. Created in 1959, the award celebrates contributions in research and development that support the Energy Department’s science, energy and national security missions.

Shale gas is changing the American energy economy at a breakneck pace, and its rapid, widespread domestic utilization is redefining the questions our government must address about energy security, policy and the environment. Shale gas as an energy source poses a huge potential boon to American manufacturers of all stripes, but the relationship between the shale gas boom and U.S manufacturing competitiveness needs clearer understanding.

Nathaniel Szymczak, the Dow Corning Assistant Professor of Chemistry and an Energy Institute Faculty Affiliate, was named a 2014 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation research fellow, along with two other U-M scientists. The award comes with a $50,000 research boost.

Frank Markus of Motor Trend magazine explains why every carbon molecule in a liquid biofuel, such as ethanol or biodiesel, can't be counted "as an ecological freebie." He reports on the debate about the Renewable Fuel Standard that took place during a panel discussion at this year's Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Government-Industry Meeting in Washington, DC.

Three pairs of researchers will be reaching across an ocean this year to spark collaborative energy projects with the receipt of University of Michigan – Ben Gurion University of the Negev Collaboration on Energy Research grants.

The catch? The projects have to feature a research team from each university, working jointly on projects related to global energy security. Teams could choose to focus on one of three topics: photovoltaics and solar technology, liquid fuels and engine combustion, or thermoelectricity, materials, and devices.

Nina Lin and Neil Marsh met at an Energy Institute-hosted symposium three years ago. Both were interested in biofuels, but their research backgrounds are substantially different: Nina Lin is an assistant professor of Chemical Engineering, and Marsh is a professor in the Chemistry Department and of Biological Chemistry at the Medical School.

Since 2005, the United States has embarked on a steady expansion of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, widely touted as a win-win proposition for energy security and the environment. However, the promised breakthroughs in biofuel technology have greatly lagged the rapid ramp-up of production mandated by Congress while adverse side effects of the policy have become ever more clear.